You may have heard of it as “submarining.
It hapens when a youth’s seatbelt goes over his pelvis and up into the soft abdominal area.
One of the problems of this type of injury, according to Dr. Steve Rouhana, is that the child may seem fine right after the crash, yet could have a liver laceration or a perforated intestine. Both are very serious, possibly fatal, injuries.
It’s all about seatbelt design. “It may not be possible to develop a seatbelt that can safely restrain a 250-pound adult and a 50-pound child,” said Dr. Steve Rouhana. “So it’s possible we will always need booster seats.”
“These things may not show up until a day or two later, at which time it could be an extremely serious injury and possibly fatal.”
Four to eight year olds are especially vulnerable.
Dr. Rouhana is the senior technical leader with Ford’s passive-safety research and advanced engineering department. About three or four years ago he was approached by a colleague, at the Children’s Hospital Philadelphia, about an alarming statistic in her research.
She had looked at children who are restrained in automobile collisions. She found that between four and 8 years old there was a 25-fold increase in the risk of abdominal injuries, if the child was not restrained in booster seats.
